THE WEATHER MAN
An Interview With Nicolas Cage

Chicago is known as the Windy City and the people of that city really care about what the weather is going to be for the day. That’s where the tv weather man comes into play; it’s their job to make sure they get it right.

Unfortunately, Nicolas Cage doesn’t always get it right in his new film, properly titled The Weather Man. He plays a local weather guy with a knack for getting food thrown at him. Yeah, apparently the great people of Chicago have nothing better to do than to throw their fast food at him. I guess fortunately for Nick, no one’s really been urged to throw stuff at him:

Nicolas Cage: “I wish I could be more colorful and say all the time, but I’ve never had anything thrown at me. At least not food and not from someone I hadn’t met before. There have been times at me in the past where girls have thrown glasses at me and things like that.”

Director, Gore Verbinski was the real food slinger. It seems he wanted to get the shot just right:

Nicolas Cage: “There are some good photographs of him throwing the chicken nuggets at my head. He’s really got a through with his arm; he’s got a good arm, he could have been a good pitcher. I think he did enjoy it. He made sure every time it was him.”

About the weather – they shot in Chicago so Nick should know about relying on the forecast:

Nicolas Cage: “Well, it’s a very important location to The Weather Man; we have to make a distinction between weather men. A Chicago weather man is not the same as animal as an L.A. weather man, let’s face it. We have perfect weather most of the time and in Chicago people really rely on their weather man, it can make the difference between making it home alive sometimes or not. It’s that cold as you know in Chicago, people very often stay at home, it also affects itself in the culture. Steve Conrad, who wrote the script, would talk about that people would just come over to each other’s homes and talk just because of the weather. So, Chicago, that location was intrinsic and instrumental to the whole movie. It is a character in the movie - Chicago and the weather.”

Nick’s father is played by the legendary Michael Caine in the film. He had to live up to the expectation of a very successful man. And in real life, Nick had to live up to some big shoes as well, being in the Coppola family:

Nicolas Cage: “It’s always fascinating to work the best in any field and Michael Caine for me has always been among the best in acting and film acting. It was exhilarating, it was a wonderful opportunity to study him, to look at his very seasoned approach to film acting. And that whole thing that he did where he talked about looking at the right eye and the left eye, I was watching him and there were moments where he would actually do that to me. And I was like ‘Wow, Michael Caine actually did that thing I saw him do on that video.’ I was ecstatic to work with him and he was also friendly which was an added bonus. In regards to my own father, he had that aura about him, a highly regarded professor of literature, that’s a lot to live up to. He has his PhD, but, what I will say about my dad that may seem out of character is that I will go on record now and say I’m not a high school drop out. That did not happen, I was not a good match for school, I was not a good match for high school. I went to my father and said ‘Dad, this isn’t me. I want to act, I want to work, this isn’t right for me, it’s affecting my self esteem. I’ve got to get out.’ And instead of pushing me he said ‘That’s fine, just get the equivalency.’ So, I studied and got my GED and got my diploma and left and went to work. The reason why I bring that up is that for someone who had a history in education and a life in education he was also frustrated with the educational system and encouraged me to pursue my other goals.”

But for Nick, playing the weather man, he had to use the green screen. It was pretty easy for him to get used to:

Nicolas Cage: “You know, I had done Adaptation where I had to act with a twin brother that wasn’t there with an ear wig in my ear and a tennis ball. So, that was like a precursor to being a weather man doing everything backwards cause it’s all backwards. They put up these put-ons and you can’t look at it and you have to do your dialogue. Those days were daunting for me; I would go there very nervous about getting the dialogue out and getting the moves. I worked with Tom Skillet in Chicago and I had people to guide me on the set and actual weather people who could guide me on the set and that was helpful.”

A scene in the film takes his character to the DMV where he’s recognized by someone, but doesn’t treat him all that nice. Being a high-caliber movie star, he had to be used to that:

Nicolas Cage: “I don’t relate to it in the regard that I have bad relations with people in the street or at the DMV. I try to make an effort to meet people well and I know that if it weren’t for my fans I wouldn’t be here, so they are very important to me. And I know what it’s like to meet someone you admire and have them be complete, well, jerks. So, you go ‘Now I don’t know if I can enjoy their work anymore,’ so, I always want to meet people well and take every picture and sign every autograph. But, before I was famous somebody impounded my car and they weren’t very nice about it. It was a Peugeot 505 convertible and it was Dean Martin’s car which his ironic because I now live in Dean Martin’s old house. And they did it with so much – they were so rough about it. There was no reason to impound it; I hadn’t done anything wrong with it, there were dents all over it, and I remember just wanting to go there and get my car by any means possible. So, I kind of related to that, for some reason that memory comes to mind with the moment with the DMV in the movie. I think we’ve all been frustrated with the powers that be that doesn’t matter if you’re a weather man or me or you. We all have to deal with that line and it’s frustrating.”

The Weather Man is kind of a different role for Nick, it’s a darker character than he’s used to playing. So how did he get attached to it:

Nicolas Cage: “Todd Black, one of the producers, he already had the script by Steven Conrad and he brought it to my company Saturn Films. My partner Norm said ‘I read this fantastic script; you’ve got to read it.’ And I read it and said ‘Yeah, this is really right for me at this time,’ because I have a lot of stuff I want to get out and this is the perfect vehicle for that. So, Todd and I met and we started talking about directors and said we had a great meeting with Gore Verbinski and he’s really passionate about the movie. Now, Gore and I had tried to work together a few times before and it didn’t happen for whatever the reason was, so I remembered Gore and some of his other films that he’d done and his passion. I met with Gore and it was chemistry; it seemed like the right thing to do. There was a spark and so, we just went for it and that was really it, nothing too exciting, it just fell into place easily.”

Of the several films in pre-production Nick has coming up, Ghost Rider is one that’s on a lot of people’s minds right now. He gave away a little bit about it, and I mean, a little:

Nicolas Cage: “It is very simple and it may sound strange, but I am Ghost Rider. (laughs) It wasn’t that challenging and I had all the honest ways of expressing that character. I’m very curious to see how people will respond to it. He’s a man who is trying to just take a negative and turn it into a positive like we all do. We’ve been talking about that here together today with The Weather Man. I’ve been trying to take movies and do something positive with any negative feelings I’ve had. Johnny Blaze is a superhero who had a very horrible thing happen to him and he’s taken that negative and is going to make something positive out of it no matter what, and in that way you can say I’m like Ghost Rider.”

Working with Gore on this film probably prepared him for working on the new Oliver Stone 9/11 film; he briefly talked about that one as well:

Nicolas Cage: “I’ve met John McCloughlin, his family, talked through things, spent some time with the Port Authority, met with all the surviving members of the tragedy that were there and just sort of talk through it with Oliver. I get the feeling from Oliver and the work that they have done on the screenplay that they want to make it pretty cinema verite. So it will be feeling like lot of real time unfolding; there is a lot of maybe technical jargon you may not understand, but it’s going to smack of reality, try and get it as real as they can. I’m happy to say that Oliver and I have been trying to work together for many years, it hasn’t happened, but I’m happy to say that we waited for this one, because this one is so positive about the human condition. The buildings themselves really aren’t exploited; I don’t think you even see the skyline. It’s really more about these men as the building came down, where they went to survive and how they coped.”

Of course, Nick just had baby, Kal-El, with his wife. He talked about starting over again with fatherhood:

Nicolas Cage: “Without going into detail, I’ve got 15 years experience so, I’m ready. I think no mater what walk of life we’re in or who we are we have that connection with our father because we are small in the beginning and they are big and there is awesome regard for ‘dad.’”

The man he plays in this, Dave Spritz, is a very uncomfortable man. He’s not your typical happy-go-lucky kind of guy. Nick is that type of happy guy, so it took a little bit to get into character:

Nicolas Cage: “There have been times when I’ve been uncomfortable in my own skin, like press junkets for example. (laughs) But, no, honestly where you’re in a room for five hours and you have one TV interview after another and you know that anything you say is going to be on public record for the rest of your life, that can make you pretty uncomfortable in your own skin. But in terms of and maybe I can play that with Dave Spritz, but in terms of what I do with my own anger - George Washington once said ‘When you’re angry count to ten and if you’re really angry count to 100 before you do anything.’ So, I do that, and then also I use film, again, to transfer that anger and do something positive with that emotion like The Weather Man.”

Well, I do have to say, it’s an uncomfortable film to watch. The performance to watch is from Michael Caine, who delivers an awesome presence on the screen!

The Weather Man springs into theaters October 28th; it’s rated R.